Oil Finding Tips

If you're having trouble finding oil, there are a couple of things you can do that will help you find some.

Oil icon

Here are a few tips that may help.

Things That Require Oil

First lets look at what you can't create:

• vehicles
  • Sailboats can be manufactured or handcrafted completely from materials foraged from the environment
  • Space Rockets can be manufactured using just fertilizer as a base resource
  • All other vehicles require oil as part of their manufacturing chain or for fuel production
• Environmental protection gear
  • EV suits requires oil
  • Pressure Tents requires oil
  • Only achievable gear is a Medkit to heal after short exits from a space rocket to forage rocks quickly
• Spacecraft
• Harsh environment buildings
  • Colonization of non-habitable worlds is out of the question without oil.

Tips

Increase Resource View Range

1. Open the Settings (Shift+F12) window
2. Go to the Render tab
3. Increase the Rock View Range slider to maximum.

This will not have any effect until you move far enough to cause the rock icons to be regenerated. Then you will see the resource icons much farther away.

Alternatively, restarting the game might be faster.

Remove Foliage

Foliage will hide rocks, so using the Defoliate Area landscaping tool can reveal these rocks and some of them might be oil.

Check Other Resource Zones

Explore your home world. Most people have a lot more time than they think to get to know their world. There is no rush as you have a full week until the asteroid impact.

1. Depending on your home world's size, it has up to four resource zones in which to explore for natural resources
2. Amount and quality of natural resources varies in each zone. A resource that is rare in one zone could be abundant in the next
3. Resource zone divisions are marked on the world map as grey longitude (vertical) lines
4. The distance between resource zones is shorter as you get closer to the poles. It takes much longer to circumnavigate the globe at the equator than at 60°N or 60°S

Use a Sailboat

The sailboat is one of the few vehicles you can build and use without oil.

1. Get in your Sailboat. You can operate the sailboat from either of the back two positions
2. Go to top-down view
3. Zoom out to get a good view
4. Set resource overlay to show stone so it's easier to see your detection range
5. Raise the sail and start sailing alone the coast

Use a Space Rocket

The space rocket is one of the few vehicles you can build and use without oil.

1. Buy some units of hydrogen for extra fuel
2. Get in your space rocket
3. Start your Space Rocket and start flying around
   • Recommended altitude: 500-1000 m
   • Recommended speed: 50-70 m/s
4. Go to top-down view
5. Set resource overlay to show stone so it's easier to see your detection range

Check Other Worlds

There is always a chance that there is a second habitable or semi-habitable world in a solar system.

1. Open the system map
2. If there is any Outer, Inner or a second Habitable planet or titan, check if the details mention a breathable atmosphere
3. Fly there in a space rocket and try to set up a little colony
   • Most Outer and Inner worlds are semi-habitable and should not require building blueprints with life support
4. Construct an airport terminal on the world and on your homeworld to form a trade connection. These work even while unfinished!

Visit Other Solar Systems

If all else fails, you can still look to the stars. While a space rocket is low-tech, it is capable of deadheading to other solar systems. This would be the hardest thing to try, but it is possible.

Things of note:

• Navigating the stars without a navigation systems takes practice. Requires charting the stars and comparing them with the star map
• Travel time while deadheading is roughly 10 minutes per parsec plus 20 minutes.
• Bring extra hydrogen for fuel
• You won't know if a solar system have habitable worlds until you are at least half way there
• Avoid any solar system with a super giant sun, as a space rocket cannot escape its gravity

If there's oil underwater

Sometimes, the only sources of oil will be in the ocean, underwater somewhere. Don't worry, in most cases it's easy to access these too. You won't need to build an underwater colony.

Simply using the Grade Area tool to raise the land up above the surface usually allows far easier access to underwater resources. From there, you can build a regular road to the site and then place a well. Do note that this won't work if the ocean is more than 100 meters deep, as that is the change limit of the grade area tool.

This technique involves starting the area on a piece of existing land, and dragging the it over the oil nodes and then placing. Finishing the area construction isn't needed, you'll be able to place wells on it regardless.